Invasion of the Body Switching Comedies, Part 1:
1988 found a Tebo household divided over what was the better body-switching comedy of the year. My mom was super tight with the Dudley Moore/Kirk Cameron film “Like Father Like Son” while I flew the flag hardcore for the (don’t) Judge (the) Reinhold/Fred Savage comedy “Vice Versa” (we apparently hadn’t seen the far superior “Big” at this point). I checked it out again last night for the first time in a good 30 years...and here’s what happens: the Judge plays a wealthy, divorced workaholic department store VP who has no time for his 12 year-old son Charlie even though Charlie is totally Kevin Arnold from the Wonder Years (Gasp!). We know Judge is wealthy because when he goes to fancy restaurants he demands a bottle of Grey Poupon be brought to the table. Seriously, there’s like five Grey Poupon references in this movie...leading me to believe it was bankrolled by mustard. Anyway, Judge goes on a trip to the Orient (seriously...they call it that) where he engages some rich cultural (re:vaguely racist) exchanges and comes home with some sort of voodoo Chinese restaurant circa 1975 tchotchke head made of gold that Lo Pan from “Big Trouble in Little China” stuck in his luggage. Back home, Kevin Arnold is forced to spend the weekend with Judge...which gets off to a rocky start cuz the Judge HATES KIDS. They start fighting and cussing each other out and wishing they had each other’s lives (naturally) and then the tchotchke head starts smoking and shooting laser beams and...blammo!...they switch bodies!! And you know...they just sort of roll with it! The kid goes to school and acts like a know-it-all prick. The old man goes to work and acts like a child yet somehow makes a series of genius business decisions. He also gets to do some mild necking with his old man’s girlfriend Sam...which is only mildly disturbing..unlike in “Big” where a 12 year-old has actual intercourse with Elizabeth Perkins through the body of Tom Hanks. Anyway...eventually some gangsters come looking for the magic gold tchotchke head and there’s a bunch of chase scenes and blah blah blah and they eventually switch back to normal and everyone lives happily ever after. Except Judge Reinhold...who hasn’t made a good movie in 30 years and was recently arrested at an airport after freaking the fuck out when they tried to search his luggage.
*originally posted july 14, 2017